Kaimusailing

s/v Kaimu Wharram Catamaran

Vessel Name: Kaimu
Vessel Make/Model: Wharram Custom
Hailing Port: Norwalk, CT
Crew: Andy and the Kaimu Crew
About: Sailors in the Baltimore, Annapolis, DC area.
21 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA
01 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA
23 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
15 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
11 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
06 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
26 January 2024 | St. Marys, GA
14 January 2024 | St. Marys, GA
09 January 2024 | St Marys, GA
23 December 2023 | St Marys, GA
10 December 2023 | St Marys, GA
25 November 2023 | St. Marys, GA
17 November 2023 | St. Marys, GA
17 November 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
03 November 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
26 October 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
17 October 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
11 October 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
04 October 2023 | Alice B. Tawes, McReady Pavilion, Crisfield, Maryland Eastern Shore
03 October 2023 | Alice B. Tawes, McReady Pavilion, Crisfield, Maryland Eastern Shore
Recent Blog Posts
21 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA

Just Add Water

The rainy weekend started off with overcast and fog but no rain. It looked like I might be able to get something done on the D4 dinghy. I wanted to change the bow seat which is really the bow deck. The sailing option uses the deck to hold the freestanding mast. I didn’t like how the deck looked, [...]

01 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Dinghy Alternative Seats

The rain event was more wind than rain, strong winds with gusts up to 44 mph. We drove into town to see what the harbor was like. There was a small sailboat that had dragged anchor and was sitting close to shore. The tide was out. We left and played with Bleu at Notter’s Pond.

23 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Inside Seams

Day two of the dinghy build started out with me finishing wiring the hull bottoms together on the centerline of the bottom panels. This was much easier than the wiring of the chine edges of the bottom panels and the side panels.

15 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Dinghy Day One

A Wharram Pahi 26 had been anchored in the river nearby the boatyard and was hauled out with the travel lift. I went around to look at it and talked to the owner couple. I was surprised that it had been built in Martinique in 1988. The boat is more than 30 years old.

11 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

D4 Redux

The inflatable (deflatable) dinghy I had bought was deteriorating. It had bottom seams separating. It is a West Marine branded dinghy made out of PVC. HH66 is the adhesive to reattach the seams. A friend had a similar problem and bought the same adhesive. I was waiting to hear from him how it worked [...]

06 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA

The Clincher

We decided to go to Amelia Island for the day, probably to the beach. Our plan to cycle around on the Raleigh 20’s seemed like a bad idea, Bleu can’t keep up with a bicycle for very long and when he quits he quits. So we would walk, where?, Fort Clinch State Park. She has a forever pass for Florida [...]

Crash Course

15 November 2015 | Bogue Sound, NC
Capn Andy/Gale
I was frightened by the huge wave and the snap roll and crashing of gear down below. I had already dropped the main and was sailing with just the staysail, but even that was proving to be too much sail in this wind.
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I went into the chartroom to figure out what to do next and I found the nav computer, the toughbook, smashed. I had no paper chart of the area and everything in the chart room was like a trash heap. Back on deck I had to drop the staysail, it was snapping like a flag and it was difficult to sheet it in.
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I didn't want to hang around near the shoals in a gale. With no sail on, the boat would drift downwind to the northeast and out into the Atlantic. I didn't want to disappear out into the Atlantic. I tried to run at an angle more to the north, toward land, but it was difficult to get the boat on that heading.
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All this was happening in daylight hours of the second day of the passage. I reefed the staysail to about 175 square feet and used it to sail more northerly. I could see ships passing in the heavy seas and one that was to the north of me, so I was south of the shipping lanes that went around the reef.
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There was a loud bang and the starboard turning block ripped out of the deck in front of the pilothouse. It was bolted through the deck with large fender washers as backing, but it just pulled out an 8 inch hole in the deck. I stuffed an old painting shirt in the hole to keep water out of the pilothouse. I was able to control the sail by taking its sheet directly to a cleat by the winch.
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It was now getting dark and the storm was increasing. I could see mountains on the horizon but they were waves, huge waves with rollers surfing down their faces. Could I have drifted onto the shoal somehow? I turned on the depthsounder and saw 115 feet of water, certainly not a shoal.
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I was heading northwest but making good a course to the north. I had the old Magellan Pioneer GPS giving out course and speed and position, but no chart to look at to see where I actually was. I knew if I went to the northwest I would hit land and if I went to the north I might hit land or I might hit Cape Hatteras.
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At this point I really wondered if I would make it back. There was the possibility of more damage to the boat and this storm was violent, not easing. It was night and we kept on with the little staysail reefed and pulling strongly. There was nothing else to do.
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I wondered if any of the apps on the cell phone would work without the cell phone network. There was one called Marine Navigator Lite which I hated because you had to find your digital chart from a long list that was pages and pages long. I found that this app would run even though we had no cell phone coverage so far out to sea. I took the positions from the Magellan that I had written down in a notebook and tried to find a chart that we might be on. I found Lookout Point to Frying Pan Shoal somewhere in the long list and opened it. I found we were in the western portion of Bogue Sound but a long way from land.
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Here is the SPOT tracking of our course back. The rest of the passage will continue.
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